Building on diversity

Two public hearings this week were aimed at gaining equal participation of both minority-owned and women-owned businesses in the New Mississippi River Bridge Project.

The Illinois and Missouri departments of transportation sponsored the hearings at St. Patrick Center in St. Louis on Tuesday and at the Gethsemane Church of the Living God in East St. Louis on Wednesday where nearly a full house participated in a lively discussion.

The two transportation departments have joined together to ask the U.S. Department of Transportation to waive the current Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) goal and to set separate goals for women and minorities.

Ellen Schanzle-Haskins, chief counsel for IDOT, said while there is an equal share of minority- and women-owned business in the Metro East, the 14 percent participation has been lopsided with about 10 percent of contracts going to the women-owned businesses and just 4 percent to the minority-owned businesses.

“This is a huge project and an important one,” she said. “IDOT wants to try to get as much involvement as we can from women-owned businesses and minority-owned businesses. We are not talking about the work force here.”

She said the percentages of women businesses and minority businesses should be nearly equal.

In an effort to increase minority participation in the project, it would be better to track these businesses separately.

“It is not our purpose to take any work away from women construction owners, but rather to bring minority businesses up to parity,” Schanzle-Haskins said.

She said the hearings were set up to gather anecdotal evidence from the minority and women contractors about what has happened to them to cause them not to get work. The contractors were invited to speak up for the record during the meeting or to send written comments to Mason-Tillman Associates, Ltd., a national public policy research firm charged with conducting an availability analysis for IDOT and MoDOT. A local contact has been set up for the Oakland firm that has extensive experience in conducting such studies for states, counties, municipalities and special districts throughout the country, having completed 106 availability and utilization studies in the past 18 years.

Dr. Eleanor Ramsey of Mason-Tillman conducted the public hearing in East St. Louis Wednesday. She said the firm would review the private sector in the area to determine what barriers exist to business formation and credit. The anecdotal information collected will be part of the application to the U.S. Department of Transportation in the quest to set up dual goals.

It was clear that many of the speakers had also attended the hearing in Missouri and wanted to be sure to give their comments to IDOT. Eric Vickers, an attorney representing the Metro East Black Contractors Organization, presented a documented history of minority economic inclusion. He said it would provide historical evidence of District 6 in Missouri and District 8 in Illinois to show the need for special programs.

“These are not just discriminatory barriers, but they have an economic impact,” Vickers said. “There are many family-owned businesses; this will show how important it is that consideration be given to them.”

Some of the comments involved the inability of the DBEs to obtain credit and have adequate cash flow to sustain a long-term project. One asked if the project could be broken down into separate projects so the small companies could get paid more often.

IDOT District Engineer Mary Lamie said, “Absolutely!”

She said she anticipates that the river bridge could be broken down into 25 or 30 projects and IDOT is looking at other processes to see if they could be broken down into smaller ones.

Many of the speakers, both women and minorities, most of whom were African American expressed a desire to work together for their mutual benefit. Many represented small trucking companies. They had issues with having to pay a prevailing wage to their workers which is usually based on higher union wages than they can afford.

A woman trucking company owner said, “One employee makes almost half the dollar amount that one truck is being paid. And God forbid that the foreman asks the truck to stay over and I have to pay overtime.”

She said when she complains about what the trucking company is being paid out of which she must pay her workers, she is told that trucking companies are getting paid less in Minnesota.

She said it is well known that 1.7 times the living wage is paid in St. Louis and it should not be compared to Minnesota. She said if she complains, she likely doesn’t get the contract.

One man said this is not an anomaly, but has been going on for 20 or 30 years.

“Either you play the games they want you to play or they get somebody else.”

Ramsey said the goal is to get the parity they are looking for.

“Our goal is to take care of this disparity because we’ve got the numbers and we can show it hasn’t been fair,” she said.

Thomas Mellums of Tee & E Trucking belongs to MoCAN, an activist organization in Missouri that helps minorities and women in their efforts to get work. He said the women business owners and the minority business owners need to support one another. He said price-fixing is supposed to be illegal, but he believes the general contractors get together to decide the going rate to pay the subcontractors.

“If my trucks are sitting on the lot because they won’t pay us enough, yours should be, too,” Mellums said. “IDOT and MoDOT should come down on the big guys and not on us little guys.”

He said he bid on the I-64/U.S. 40 project, but didn’t take the job because it wouldn’t pay enough.

“I’m glad I didn’t go on 64/40,” he said. “The ones who did came out broke and I stayed at home broke.”

Many of the persons in attendance were owners of trucking companies; several were activists like the ones from MoCAN and the United Congregations of Metro East.

Business owners can get additional information by calling Mason Tillman Associates at 312-416-0304. Questions about any topic other than the application for waiver of the single DBE goal should be directed to IDOT’s and MoDOT’s stakeholders’ advisory council. In Illinois, contact Lee Coleman at 346-3360 or e-mail him at lee.coleman@illinois.gov. In Missouri, contact April Hendricks-Brown at 314-524-9251 or e-mail her at April.Hendricks-Brown@modot.mo.gov.

Written statements will be accepted and put into the official record for 15 business days after the hearing and should be addressed to Andrew Gates, 70 Second Street, St. Louis, MO 63102.